BTjunkie, one of the largest BitTorrent indexes on the Internet, has decided to shut down voluntarily today. A combination of legal actions against fellow file-sharing sites and time-consuming projects have led to the drastic decision that takes out one the main players in the BitTorrent landscape.

Founded in June 2005, BTjunkie has been among the top BitTorrent sites for more than half a decade.

The site was never involved in any legal action, and to keep it this way the site’s operators decided to shut the site down for good today. The following message was posted on the BTjunkie homepage a few minutes ago:

“This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!”

Talking to TorrentFreak, BTjunkie’s founder said that the legal actions against other file-sharing sites such as MegaUpload and The Pirate Bay played an important role in making the difficult decision. Witnessing all the trouble colleagues got into was cause for a lot of worry and stress, and those will now belong to the past.

That said, BTjunkie’s owner still thinks there might be a future for other BitTorrent sites.

“I really do hope so, the war is far from over for sure,” he told TorrentFreak.

While BTjunkie was never targeted directly by copyright holders, the site was reported to the US Trade Representative (USTR) November last year. Both the RIAA and MPAA listed the torrent index as a ‘rogue’ site that facilitated mass copyright infringement.

BTjunkie is also one of the search terms censored by Google because it’s piracy related, alongside The Pirate Bay, RapidShare, uTorrent and others.

As a result of the decision to shut down BTjunkie, one of the top 5 torrent sites with dozens of millions of users a month is no more. Judging from previous shutdowns like that of TorrentSpy and Mininova, users will quickly find a new home at one of the many alternatives.

Nonetheless, it’s the end of an era.

RIP BTjunkie

The shock & awe of the MegaUpload arrests (and other things going on of course) is taking its toll. Decentralized communications are under fire.

If providers are going to be forced to "police" their customers content ... this could put a real dent in cloud services enthusiasm me thinks. As the (strangely head shaped) "ball" is obviously rolling.

If providers are going to be forced to "police" their customers content ... this could put a real dent in cloud services enthusiasm me thinks. As the (strangely head shaped) "ball" is obviously rolling.

Unless the cloud is owned by Apple...or Google.What's the difference between megaupload and google docs?

And when you want to completely drop off the DNS-based web, but still stay connected it's time to go retro-geek :Synchronet BBS:

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ynchronet Bulletin Board System Software is a free software package that can turn your personal computer into your own custom online service supporting multiple simultaneous users with hierarchical message and file areas, multi-user chat, and the ever-popular BBS door games.

Synchronet development began as a personal hobby in 1990 for single-tasking MS-DOS compatible computers and Hayes compatible modems. The program was sold commercially from 1992-1996 after which time it was released (with source code) for both the 16-bit DOS and 32-bit OS/2 platforms to the public domain and development by the author was ceased.

In November of 1999, the author found a renewed interest in further developing Synchronet, specifically for the Internet community, embracing and integrating standard Internet protocols such as Telnet, FTP, SMTP, POP3, IRC, NNTP, and HTTP. Synchronet has since been substantially redesigned as an Internet-only BBS package for Win32 and Unix-x86 platforms and is an Open Source project under continuous development.

Synchronet Version 3.1x for Win32 and Unix (Intel-x86 architecture) is available for download now and can be previewed on Vertrauen (Home of Synchronet BBS Software).

Note: you'll need to enable telnet in Windows 7 or install a telnet client to use BBS software. PuTTY is a good choice.

This latest collapse of an ISP could be just another illustration (there have been 2 or 3 so far, I think) as to what a display of institutionalised and legalised thuggery can actually achieve.

The Megaupload was arguably a salutary lesson for all, since it demonstrated what the real powers could make happen to you if they become impatient and decide to avoid following an expensive, time-consuming and due legal process. Just concoct some trumped-up charges and release the dogs.One thing it seems to have proven is that force/intimidation ("shock and awe") is still the most effective deterrent when employed by State/MAFIAA thugs.

I must admit that I would never have expected to see a repeat of the sort of calculating, deliberate, absolutely over-the-top - i.e., excessive and unnecessarily violent - actions by the New Zealand police that were evident in the1981 South Africa rugby union tour of New Zealand

That it was apparently done in this case at the behest of a foreign Fascist State beggars belief.There is a documentary on NZTV tonight that apparently examines whether there was unnecessary force employed, but given that it is State-funded TV, I think the outcome could be predictable - "Nothing to see here Move on." Keep the proles happy.We shall see.

Coming back to the topic, I heard the news in one of the IRC room that some of the MPAA guys are setting up trackers inside torrent and sending notice to the ISPs (and in turn users). Check out demonoid site and search for x-men first class small size torrent, in the comments you'll find that people are complaining about such notice from ISP.

@4wd, search is now personalized based on IP, search history and with other variables. What you see in results is not common for others, not even for the most obvious keywords, we all are getting different search results. I too don't see TPB, Rapidshare on google results anymore.

I knew that but usually filtering was applied on a region wide basis and usually due to Google complying with regional government restrictions. Normally my search results are only skewed by having Australian sites nearer the top due to IP address, (and that doesn't seem to work most of the time).

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I too don't see TPB, Rapidshare on google results anymore.

I guess the UK, USA and Australia governments haven't got around to being the complete censoring b@st@rds I thought they were.........yet.

My WTF-meter would have registered off the charts, had it not burned out a while back.

Elite Anti-Terror Police Went After Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom

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While last month’s shutdown of Megaupload has been well documented, the finer details of the raid on Kim Dotcom’s mansion have only just been revealed. A new and astonishing report features a house tour and in-depth discussion with Dotcom’s bodyguard. He was confronted by dozens of armed police, some from New Zealand’s elite anti-terrorist force, who also demanded of a nanny: “Do you have any bombs?!”

My WTF-meter would have registered off the charts, had it not burned out a while back.

Elite Anti-Terror Police Went After Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom

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While last month’s shutdown of Megaupload has been well documented, the finer details of the raid on Kim Dotcom’s mansion have only just been revealed. A new and astonishing report features a house tour and in-depth discussion with Dotcom’s bodyguard. He was confronted by dozens of armed police, some from New Zealand’s elite anti-terrorist force, who also demanded of a nanny: “Do you have any bombs?!”

The video that follows has the police chief in charge. His comments are pretty guarded.

He also never really explains how he can reconcile his belief that the police acted in a manner that could best protect the lives of everyone inside and outside the house with having 30 or so heavily armed and adrenalin-juiced paramilitary police running around in all that darkness, noise, and confusion.

Nor how he could argue that the police were acting on the best intelligence available despite the fact it took them a full half hour before they even located, let alone entered, the mansion's 'safe room' - and all that despite the fact that the room was clearly shown on the existing plans for the house that were already on file with whatever NZ's equivalent of the local zoning and building permits office is.

It's amazing nobody was accidentally hurt or killed that night.

If that interview was an attempt by the police to put some positive spin on an excessively heavy-handed but almost comically botched raid, he needed to be much better prepped. Maybe next time they can hire some professional handlers to coach him on how to tone down what comes across as a contemptuous and rather smirky demeanor while they're at it.

Sorry. But the man sounded like an ill-informed apparatchik working off a hastily prepared set of talking points. And that was before he started stonewalling most of the pointed questions being asked (and re-asked) of him.

It doesn't make sense. I have the highest regard for the integrity of the NZ Defence and police people that I have had the opportunity to work with over the years. I feel sure there must be a lot more behind the charges against Mr Dotcom and possibly others, for the police to have acted in the way they did. For all we know, the police may be prohibited from telling us what it is."There were 70-odd officers distributed across a number of properties, executing up to 10 search warrants during the course of the day......There were 20 or 30 [officers] initially [at Dotcom's property] to seize the place..."

Indeed. That would be the famous Pinched with Four Aces by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. It's one in a series unofficially called "Dogs Playing Poker" if you're not familiar with them. Was a time not so long ago when you couldn't go into a local tavern, or the back of a gas station, and not see a print of at least one of these pictures hanging on a wall somewhere.

My personal favorite is Poker Sympathy

Says everything that needs to be said about most people's attitude towards those who attempt great things and fail.

Note: Coolidge also was known for inventing the Comic Foreground - those silly illustrated scenes with cutouts for your head that you can be photographed standing behind. Forerunner of today's digital compositing and 'green screen' techniques. (In 1874, he was also awarded a patent for it: Patent 149,724 - Processes of Taking Photographic Pictures. It's only two pages long. Ah, those were the days!)